On the occasion of my wife’s September birthday, I gave her a card that on the front flap said, “Honey, I’d be lost without you”, and on the inside flap said, “Not to mention cold, hungry, dressed badly, inconsiderate, cranky, smelly … Thanks for all you do, and happy birthday.”
She thinks birthday cards, when it’s just the two of us exchanging them, are a waste of money. But she laughed at the joke, and since I told her the card only cost five bucks, she seemed to like the sentiments even more.
I like funny cards on special occasions. And this one got me to thinking: How bad am I, really? And how many other American husbands can identify with that same self-realization?
When you’ve been married for as long as I have (36 years, if I remember right), many of us husbands tend to rely on our wives for things that we used to figure out by ourselves. My dad was older when he married — he waited until he returned home from his World War II service — so I suppose it could’ve been harder for him to adjust to married life after he’d been a bachelor for so long. But what’s my excuse? Sandy and I married right after we graduated from college. I was still 22. All my bad habits should’ve been purged by now.
I have a theory, however. And it’s that when boys become married men, they all-too-quickly assume that they don’t have to think for themselves any more.
For instance: When I was single (in college), I chose my own shirts to wear, and I knew that if I chose something ridiculous, I had no one else to set me straight. But when I became a married man, I began to choose them with less insight, figuring (correctly, it turns out) that if the shirt was wrong for the occasion, my wife would make me change out of it. The implication, then, is that with a wife present to make these decisions for me, I didn’t have to think at all.
The theory works for other issues, as well. If I procrastinate when I should be mowing the lawn, I can trust that Sandy will mention it before the grass grows to my kneecaps. Therefore, I don’t have to worry about it; I’m married to an alarm clock.
And so on, and so on. The examples are endless.
Yes, you may think I’m a buffoon for being so slow to recognize things. But it isn’t my fault. I’ve been programmed … by marriage.
Now as for those other things, like my crankiness, smelliness, etc., I’m certainly grateful for having a good wife to smooth all those rough edges. I guess that’s why they call them “the better half.”